For BigOleFordFan: 2004 XLT 4.6l Triton 2V V8
Short story: If you pull a sparkplug in your used Ford Triton 2V V8 and discover that cylinder has been repaired with a cheap auto store (HeliCoil, Save-A-Thread, Carquest, etc) kit then do yourself a favor, bite the bullet and order the Calvan or similar high-quality thread replacement kit and use that instead. It's expensive but the sanity you save will definitely be your own!
Long story (grab some coffee or bourbon):
Ok.. finally have a chance to update this... Like I stated earlier what started me down this road was the P0303 code and poor idle and misfire at highway speeds. Pulled the coil and plug and found THIS:
![IMG_3317[1].JPG](https://www.expeditionforum.com/data/attachments/80/80100-08c24cbd422c2c1c2ff8c58374144bdf.jpg "IMG_3317[1].JPG")
Well at least it was a Motorcraft plug... notice the broken insulator? Yeah that's the issue BUUUUT whaddafug is that black ring? That, my friends, is the dreaded blown-out-spark-plug-cheap-auto-parts-store-fix sleeve. Here's a comparison shot without one.
![IMG_3316[1].JPG](https://www.expeditionforum.com/data/attachments/80/80101-1b60dc2a6bd6271750706a0ee6e95b3c.jpg "IMG_3316[1].JPG")
Try as I might I could not get the sleeve off. Thought "well if the old sleeve came out, a new one will go right back in". Off to the parts store, $16 bucks later I have a kit with a tap and a few new sleeves. Blissfully unaware of the horrors that awaited me, I tried to "dry fit" the new plug and sleeve, no dice, would NOT thread. Ok, well I have a nice new tap so, I attempted to use the tap to re tap the hole, it basically just chased the worn out threads that were there. Now I'm in quite the pickle. Hole is too big for the new plug, and reamed out too much for the new kit.
Just for fun, I ran my borescope into the hole to see what's up... the faint of heart should look away..
Oh the humanity! Those are some horrible threads. Notice the lack of ridges or anything that would hold decent torque. Poked into the cylinder and noticed this little gem:
I know it's crappy quality but every time I tried to snap the image the scope would move. Notice the circular mark in the upper right corner. It LOOKS like something was hitting the piston face or had scored it at some point. Anyone with ideas chime in please.
So the threads are garbage and almost all of the kits I could find were the same type, thin sleeved junk. Finally I found a tech using a kit made by CalVan. He swears by it and has a few YouTube videos on how to use it. I'll link to vids and the kit below. It's expensive, $240.00 expensive, so I picked up a similar kit on Amazon for $100. Yeah, I know but if this Expy had 100K ish miles and had a bunch of life left I may have sprung for the expensive kit. However, it's got 250K on the clock so I went with the knock-off but I wasn't disappointed.
This is the kit I got:
Worked great with the exception of the air hose thing (more on that in later). You really can't tell from the pic, but the bore reamer, the tap, and the sleeves are massive. I hit my file attachment limit, so you are just going to have to use your imagination from here on.
I'll spare you the details but suffice it to say I followed the YouTube video on how to use the kit pretty much to that letter. My results were great. Kit worked as expected and I was able to ream out the holes, tap new threads, and insert the kit with ease. It was actually surprisingly easy. Couple things to note:
-The alignment sleeve and the air hose kit are invaluable. The sleeve makes sure the reamer is aligned correctly in the plug hole and the hose kit is there to make sure your valves are seated. So yea they really make the kit. The beefy sleeves and the fact that the kit essentially cuts all new threads into the head, not just the 4 measly threads that come from the factory, is what really sets this kit apart. You literally create all new threads, not just over tap the original ones like the cheap kits do.
-The cheap Chinese made air hose adapter for the leak down tool didn't fit a standard quick change adapter. No matter how hard I tried to fix it, it just wouldn't grab. A little modification with some air line fittings fixed that but it was a PITA. YMMV but mine didn't work... 4 out of 5 stars.
-I used compressed air to blow out the cylinder and a shop vac with a long piece of vacuum line attached to make sure I got all the shavings. You will create a PILE of shavings in the cylinder so it's important to get as much as possible out before starting the engine. A couple of small shavings left over isn't going to kill your engine (aluminum is softer than steel), but it's better safe than sorry.
-A borescope of some kind is a MUST. I used a scope that was meant for looking in walls that connects to my phone but it was free and worked fine. You can rent a scope at any auto store but you really do need one to check your work and to make sure you got most of the shavings.
Fix feels "solid", the insert threaded right into the hole, and torqued to 20ft-lbs easily.
So if you experience a blown-out plug, which is all too common on these engines, and/or you go to change your plugs and get a nasty surprise like I did, take heart in knowing that there is a quality, permanent fix out there for your engine that doesn't require replacing the head or your Expy.
The real question is... did this fix the problem?
Short answer: Yes... no more P0303 code.
Long answer: I discovered a few more problems that had me throwing P2195 and P2197 as well as misfire codes on cylinder 1 and 6. But more on that later.
